A força argumentativa da emoção em cartas de autoapresentação para novas amizades

Abstract

Self-presentation is a type of discursive action that allows subjects to talk about themselves, from physical characteristics to their particular preferences, such as values, personal history and other information. As a speech genre, the self-introduction letter enabled, and still enables, in some cases, even if rare in the contemporary context, given the reach of digital platforms, interaction between interlocutors, in certain interaction contexts, such as in the letters sections of the reader and/or correspondence, particularly present in the 70s and 80s in women’s magazines. With an interest in this type of interaction, this study aims to analyze the use of emotion as an argumentative resource in the “self-introduction letter for new friendships” genre. Within these limits, we are particularly interested in observing marks of pathetic speech (emotional speech), mainly based on studies of rhetoric and new rhetoric. The socalled emotional or pathetic speech seems to be the argumentative modality that stands out most in terms of plurality, since human beings, at some point in their lives, have already been guided by feelings and emotions, elements that can be raised as an argumentative resource in adherence to the thesis and, due to this distinction, it is the core of the analysis of this research. When considering the Aristotelian conception that human relationships are based on and through language, it is coherent to infer that sócio-discursive interactions and their intentional ways of acting on others are relevant objects of study. For this research, the focus will be on the use of argumentative resources in the exposure of emotions in personal self-introduction letters to carry out a targeted action. This study will have as its starting point the outlining theories of Discursive Textual Analysis (ATD) and the Theory of Argumentation in Discourse (TAD), according to the concepts of Adam (2019); Amossy (2018); Cavalcante et al (2022); Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1996). Based on these considerations, the pathetic modality of argumentation will have as its guiding points the studies of Breton (1999); Charaudeau (2017); Plantin (2008). The construction of each author’s discursive ethos will increase the scientific basis of the analysis of this dissertation, focusing on the concepts defended by Amossy (2018). The corpus comprises a sample of six self-introduction letters, all written by women, taken from a collection of 324 correspondence, sent in response to an advertisement published in the Cantinho da Amizade section of Capricho magazine, on July 4, 1973.